Add labels to cards

A label is a way of categorizing cards within a board. Each label is represented by a color and can also be given a name.

There are 30 label colors to choose from in Trello, and a colorless label option. A single card can have multiple labels. Colored labels will display on a card’s front and back. Colorless labels (represented by the light gray color) will only display on the back of the card.

Add a label

There are a few ways to add a label to a card:

  • Open the card and click Labels

  • Open your board, hover over the card and click the pencil icon, then choose Edit Labels

  • Hover over the card and type “l”, then select a label from the dropdown

  • Hover over a card, then type a number 0-9, each number corresponds to a label color

Active labels are represented on the front of a card and under ‘Labels’ on the card's back.

An image showing how to add a label to a card in Trello

Remove a label

Labels can usually be removed in the same way as they were added.

  • Open the card and click Labels. Active labels are represented with a white check mark. Click an active label to remove it.

  • Open your board, hover over the card and click the icon, then choose Edit Labels

  • Hover over the card and type “l”, then select a label from the dropdown

  • Hover over a card, then type a number 0-9, each number corresponds to a label color

You can find more detail on Trello keyboards shortcuts on the shortcuts page.

View label names

By default, only the color of the label will show when viewing the cards from the board view. If you'd like to see the names of the labels, you can click on the label to display its name. Click the label to toggle back and forth.

You can also use a keyboard shortcut to do this - by typing ';', you can also toggle the names of the labels visible or invisible on your cards.

A GIF that shows how label names can be toggled off and on

Copying labels to another board

Labels apply to a single board. If you want to copy a label to another board, move a card with the desired labels to that board. Labels are automatically created on the target board when a card is moved. 

Editing labels

Naming labels can make it so much easier to remember and share what the label represents. Label names can be edited by hovering your mouse over a card and clicking the pencil icon that appears (or right-clicking the card), then clicking Edit labels. To edit a label, click on the pencil icon of the label you’d like to rename.

An image that shows how to add a label from the card front

From here, you can change the color of your label or add/change its description. There are 30 different color options to consider, as well as an option to remove color entirely from your label, which will hide it from view on the front of cards it’s added to. You can also delete your label from the edit screen if you no longer need it on your board - this will remove it from all cards on your board and cannot be undone.

An image that shows the editing screen for labels in Trello

You can also edit label names from within a board’s menu by clicking More > Labels.

A GIF that shows how to open the board menu to edit labels

Using colorblind friendly mode

You can enable colorblind friendly mode by entering the labels menu on a card or the board itself and clicking Enable colorblind friendly mode. Conversely, you can disable colorblind friendly mode by clicking Disable colorblind friendly mode.

An image that shows how to enable colorblind friendly mode for labels in Trello

Enabling colorblind friendly mode will add symbols to all labels across all boards on your Trello account which allow users to see the difference between labels without using color.

An image that shows labels on cards on a Trello board with colorblind friendly mode enabled

Labels suggestions

Trello can also suggest the most recently used labels in a given list, as shown below:

Labels suggestions

Suggestions can be helpful when you’re constantly re-using the same labels on a specific list, allowing you to find them more easily.

Labels will only be suggested if there are more than 10 labels on a given board. Otherwise, Trello won’t suggest any labels. Moreover, label suggestions are visible only per list, not for the entire board.

You can also turn off the suggestions in your profile settings. To do so, go to https://trello.com/you to access your profile settings. Then, go to the “Settings” tab. From there, scroll down to the “Suggestions” section and click on the “Disable suggestions” button.

Button to turn off suggestions

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